Disruptive move: China's Tencent surpasses Facebook in valuation

Shares for Chinese technology company, Tencent hit a record high on Monday.

Tencent Holdings Ltd has become the first Chinese firm to be worth more than $500 billion and surpassed Facebook to be the world's fifth-most valuable company.

Of the other four top rated companies in the world namely, Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Amazom.com Inc., only Amazon is valued a much less. Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing rallies 5.5%; turnover on main board reaches HK$157 billion (HK$20.1 billion), way ahead of the year's previous high of around HK$140 billion.

Tencent became a public company in 2004 in Hong Kong at the per share price of HK$3.70. Since then, it has rallied over 11,000 percent. Alibaba is now the world's seventh largest company, with a market value of $481 billion, according to Bloomberg.

CNBC credits Tencent's rise to its continued revenue growth, massive user base and investments in new areas.

A second stock connection with mainland China which opened late a year ago has allowed even more money to flow onto the semi-autonomous city's exchange. Last week, it reported a 69 per cent year-on-year rise in net profit for the third quarter to 18 billion yuan (S$3.7 billion), beating market forecasts. Games such as Honour of Kings, Dungeon Fighter Online, Clash of Clans, and League of Legends.

Their genuine prowess aside, the Financial Times points out that the rise of China's tech giants has been greatly aided by Beijing's ban on the U.S. titans - Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google.

Quoting the BBC, Tencent also owns shares in Snap, the company behind Snapchat, Lyft ride-sharing app and Tesla electric vehicle maker. The company has also invested in a number of Asian based start-ups including Uber's Indian rival, Ola. The company reportedly raised $8.3 billion Hong Kong dollars ($1.1 billion) after Tencent priced its 151 million shares at $55 Hong Kong dollars ($7.05) per piece.

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